Hi blessdog. Your Datura is really an outdoor annual, so trying to grow it indoors is possible for a short while, but difficult! For best results in the future, treat it like you would garden vegetables where you can start them 6-8 weeks before last frost indoors under bright light then move them out asap. Keeping them too long indoors leads to soft, etoliated growth stretching for the light, then bugs follow soon after. For this year, get it every drop of extra light you can while indoors, and try to keep it cool if possible. Do keep in mind that these are very poisonous, and cannot be kept for even 1 second in room where children may have access to them. It could quickly put them in the hospital or even kill them. Once outdoors they are very heavy feeders, and you'll have many blooms if you fertilize regularly.

To be accurate, Datura innoxia is actually a short lived, tender perennial. But frequently treated and grown as an annual in colder climates. It should overwinter indoors just fine.

Gardengal have you overwintered them indoors? Tomatoes are also technically tender perennials, but it would be not great advice to tell people they overwinter indoors just fine in a cold climate like NH, even though some have certainly done it. Same thing here. March and April are the hardest months. That's when the plants are at their weakest and bugs come. Btw, I am formerly the International Registrar for all of the genus Datura, and a director of the American Brugmansia & Datura Society.

Blessdog, one thing I didn't mention is that it is possible to have a more reasonable success overwinter in your cold climate if you can provide some unique conditions, like very cool but not freezing, with very bright light. I have an unheated garage that stays in the 40's & 50's with a 1000w metal halide light; and I can drag them out a few feet occasionally on sunny days to hose them off. That's obviously not possible for most people though.

I've successfully overwintered Daura metel 'Double Purple' for a couple of seasons. Doubt it is too much different. The trick with overwintering any tender perennial indoors - and I grow a whole bunch of those from a wide range of genera - is to get them back outside as early as it is safe to do so.

Hi Tom - thank you for taking the time to respond. .Datura Innoxia will not survive the often brutal winters here...I was surprised to see it surviving as an out door perennial through only slightly milder Cape Cape winters. I never wrote that I intended to keep it as a houseplant - I felt fortunate to induce the seeds I had to germinate in my garden soil - when they hardly developed and hadn't flowered by late October, I decided to take a friends suggestion to try potting and overwintering them. I intend to KEEP the plant in the large container that it's in permanently, as I'll need to bring it in again next winter. My question was primarily in regard to any strategies that could be suggested to improve the sturdiness of the primary stalk as the plant itself is becoming more top heavy and "tippy" as it grows (see pic). Perhaps I'm just fussing too much.

As you can see, it appears to be thriving with very minimal attention and feeding other than daily gentle misting. I've been keeping the house at at an average temperature of 68 degrees - sometimes warmer, and not usually below 60. As time progresses, I will consider your thoughts about a cooler environment...remember that this plant was seeded and grown outdoors, not started inside and then transplanted. I'm also growing this lovely plant as a tribute and connection to my mom, who as I mentioned, painted it growing wild on The Cape in the 1980s.

Secondarily, I'd like to have it produce flowers and then seeds that I can propagate: starting them inside this time and then transplanting them, so that they might develop enough in my short season to flower outdoors and produce more seed. So it's all a labor of love for me.

As far as the general warning about the plants "toxicity", I've found that general warnings or hearsay are what are usually communicated, and that, like everything are imprecise in understanding the physiology and dangers of specific plants. I'm aware of the potential dangers of being careless around these plants or any others with which one might be unfamiliar.

I've grown giant Castor Beans Plants as annuals for years and find that there are some rumors following them around, too. Btw: I've never started my garden plants indoors, although I hope to get around to that part someday. In the meantime my vegetables and flowers flourish in the time they have ;o

A photo of a watercolor that my mom painted on Cape Cod in the late 1980's

and a photo I took of the same plant then.

As a part-time, low-grade artist, I can definitely say your mom's talented. I'm learning watercolors now (after ages with acrylics and inks) and your mother has the touch. I'm spending ages just unlearning the habits of a lifetime with different paints... :-)

What a beautiful painting!

Thank you! My mom definitely had "it". She sometimes painted plants and flowers in every stage of their life, including death - saw the beauty in that cycle. That we shared a relationship with the luminous Trumpet Flower is a big reason why I'm so eager to care for this little plant that I now have. Good luck with your painting - I have the utmost respect for the discipline of painters...it being something that I wasn't born with a predilection for ;O

Thanks Tom - I know about Datura Innoxia...believe it or not the, word "scholarly" carries little or no weight for me. Nor does the word "expert" or "authority". Btw: I would classify most of those links as containing hearsay and anecdotal, agenda driven information (I won't comment further on my opinion of the nature of those agendas, nor am I interested in discussing them in this thread). Also ALL of them (at least the dozen or so I opened) refer anecdotally to "reported", isolated events involving Datura Strarnonium (Jimson Weed), not Innoxia (Angel Trumpet), which, incidentally I've grown successfully to flower and seed the last 2 summers here from some seed a friend gave me. Indeed, MANY of those links contain NO precise identification of the variety of Datura, including the 2 you posted with one from the NYT, although I suspect that those too refer to Datura Stramonium due to it's much more vigorous growth patterns and accessibility. To zealously cite vague, anecdotal hearsay type evidence from internet links regarding the "toxicity" or psychotropic properties of this or any other plant or anything, strikes me as careless and irresponsible at best. Please don't take this the wrong way as I believe your intentions are good. I have tremendous respect for plants, their properties and behaviors, and approach them in that way - and my knowledge of them can only be empirical and first hand.

One needs to be cautious of all things in life of course.